1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to microscope apparatuses.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2010-011046, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, a scanning confocal microscope apparatus is known in which a laser beam whose wavefront is deformed by a deformable mirror is made incident on an objective lens via a galvanometer mirror unit (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2005-165212). This apparatus is configured to change the point at which the laser beam is focused in the depth direction by changing a reflective surface of the deformable mirror.
However, in the scanning confocal microscope apparatus disclosed in Patent Citation 1, a modulated wavefront relayed to a pupil surface of an objective lens by a lens and an image-forming lens is shifted on the pupil surface in a direction perpendicular to the optical axis, due to pivoting of the galvanometer mirror. Such a shift leads to increase coma, which is similar to eccentricity. Such a shift is insignificant at the center of an image acquisition region but increases toward the periphery, which significantly deteriorates the optical performance.